


Hurting Hands

by Cumbermarvel (UglyJackal)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, inspired by the doctor strange discord, the world needs more antstrange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 05:58:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16011713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyJackal/pseuds/Cumbermarvel
Summary: Stephen's hands hurt





	Hurting Hands

It wasn’t often that Stephen allowed himself to feel. 

So many years of stunting his emotions. 

So that he didn’t feel the icy gazes of the families waiting outside while he sliced open their son, their daughter, their sister, their father.

So that he didn’t feel betrayed by the doctors that ruined his hands.

So that he didn’t feel the shame of drinking himself half into a grave.

So that he didn’t feel the desperation as he sat outside the door of Kamar-Taj for five hours.

So that he didn’t feel the humiliation as he couldn’t form the portals or the mandalas or the blinding ropes of light.

So that he didn’t feel the terror of being stuck in a time loop with Dormammu.

So when he did start to feel the clutches of affection towards a former thief, he was scared. He hadn’t loved since Christine, since before the accident, and he wasn’t sure if he was still able to. But, Vishanti, did he know his feelings were real.

He would watch Scott Lang smile with the force of a thousand suns and feel his heart flip.

He would see Scott Lang lift his daughter up onto his shoulders and feel his lips grin.

He would hear the impassioned way that Scott Lang would talk about anything and feel his stomach twist.

He would notice Scott Lang’s card magic and feel his brain somersaulting while he tried to work out how he had managed to find his card.

He would smell the sizzling of the bacon that Scott Lang would cook for him in the mornings and feel his stomach growl.

He would feel the way that Scott Lang kissed his tired lips and he would smile with the elegance of the moon.

Scott knew how to make him whole again. He knew where the pieces were meant to go, and he knew how to hold him so that he could heal. He knew how to stitch up his gaping wounds when his own hands couldn’t, and he knew how to touch to cause the least amount of pain.

So when he wasn’t there to hold him and tell him he was fine, it was like the world had split itself in half and burned.

His hands were hurting. Like they did everyday, but it was so much worse today. It was like the steel pins were scratching at his muscles, like a rabid wolf was gnawing on his broken bones, like a dragon made of ice was breathing across his nerves. He shook, not just his hands but his entire body, as he tried to numb the pain, as he tried to stunt his feelings again, just so that he didn’t have to hurt.

Scott wasn’t there. He was away on a mission and he was alone at home. Alone late in the night.

Tears were leaking from his eyes, as though Saturn was dribbling from his irises. His heart was pounding, its pace elevated from the screech of his hands, like the hooves of a stallion crashing into the waves of a beach, legs painted with the froth of the sea and its own sweat, a frantic blend of colour and texture that only the boldest of painters would possess on their palette. Shuddering gasps broke from his gaping mouth, worse than when he had been in the midst of combat.

No sword could ever hurt as much as his hands.

His constant pain.

His constant weakness.

His constant shaking.

His constant clumsiness.

Everything just hurt.

It always hurt.

‘Pops,’ a quiet voice came from the doorway, ‘are you okay?’

Stephen whirled around to look through watery eyes at Cassie. The little girl was standing in her nightdress, a pale pink colour with little white horses on it that came down to rest on her toes, her face was concerned and in her deep brown eyes, the sorcerer could detect the faintest sliver of fear.

It only made him cry harder.

There was the sound of small feet on the carpeted floor as Cassie came over to him. Gentle hands rested on his knee as she looked up at him. ‘Pops?’ she asked. She looked at his hands held up in front of him, he was unable to rest them on any surface for the pain that would rock his skeleton, and she was almost hypnotised by the ferocity of the shaking; it brought back the memory of the one time that she had sat on top of the washing machine while clothes had tumbled around inside of it, and it had shook like a bucking bull.

She reached out a small hand, fingertips reaching for the shaking, scarred lumps of flesh that Stephen hated so, reaching out to touch, to comfort. The sorcerer drew in a sharp breath and pulled his hands away from the reach, a quiet whimper escaping his mouth. Cassie looked up into the pools of the Milky Way that her second father owned, hurt and worry drawing her features. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

Cupid-bow lips trembled as he tried to form an answer. ‘I… my hands… th-they hurt,’ he stuttered.

Cassie nodded thoughtfully. Then she ran off out of the room, leaving Stephen alone. Alone in his pain. Just like everyone else did. They left him alone, they said he could cope by himself, that he could do it, that he could get through it. Because he always pushed people away, always had to work on his own, had to do things by himself. He couldn’t ask for help, even when he needed it like a man in the desert craved a bottle of water. His pride, his pride wouldn’t let him, because he was selfish son of a bitch. Scott. Scott. God, he wanted Scott. Where was he? Why wasn’t he home yet? He needed Scott. He needed those arms around him and those lips on his neck.  _ He needed Scott _ .

The sound of his own panicked breathing filled his ears, drowning out the sound of small footsteps returning to his side.

Then there were arms around his waist and something soft in his lap. And as his breathing slowed, he could hear gentle singing. A lullaby. Something that he had sung to Cassie when she had woken up from a nightmare. He looked down and saw Cassie latched onto his side like a koala hanging onto a tree, her arms and legs around his waist, eyes looking up at him with a small smile on her lips. He smiled through his tears and rested his arm on her shoulders, his shaking hand hanging limply in the air.

‘I brought you Mr Snuggles,’ she said with a toothy grin, ‘he always cheers me up when I’m sad.’

Stephen looked at what was in his lap. There lay a large stuffed dog with shaggy fur the colour of faded book pages framed with stains from splashes of tea. He gently lowered his hands onto the dog and sighed as the soft fur embraced his aching fingers like a long lost friend from days of old. His shoulders relaxed and Saturn finally stopped leaking from his irises, the moon caressed his cheek and kissed his forehead as the pain weakened a little bit and he could breathe without his skin ripping in three. 

He gingerly rested a hand on Cassie’s head and smiled down at her. ‘Thank you, pumpkin,’ he said.

‘It’s okay, Pops,’ she said, standing up on the mattress to kiss the sorcerer on the jaw.

Stephen twisted himself on the bed, pulling his legs up and laid down, Cassie still attached to him. As eyes drawn from the sky fell shut, the small girl shifted herself to lay on the the wizard’s chest, her face resting on his collarbone. The both of them soon drifted into the embrace of sleep, Mr Snuggles held loosely in the shaking hand of the mage, a much smaller and much stiller hand holding tightly onto the sleeve of Stephen’s grey nightshirt.

And it was this sight that met Scott when he came back home early in the morning. A sight that made him smile with the force of a thousand stars. Once he had showered and changed into his soft pyjamas patterned with small ducks, he joined his boyfriend and his daughter in the bed and rested his head on Stephen’s shoulder, an arm around the slighter man’s waist, as the embrace of sleep also took him into its warm hold.

**Author's Note:**

> Buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/stephenstrangestan


End file.
